Macintosh SE Totally Explained

Everything about The Macintosh Se totally explained

The Macintosh SE was a personal computer manufactured by Apple. This computer marked a significant improvement on the Macintosh Plus design and was introduced by Apple at the same time as the Macintosh II. It had a similar case to the original Macintosh computer, but with slight differences in colour and styling.

Features

The SE's notable new features, compared to its similar predecessor the Macintosh Plus, were:

First compact Macintosh with space for an internal hard disk (originally 20 MB or 40 MB), or, if the user preferred, dual floppy drives.
First compact Macintosh that featured an expansion slot (SE stood for "System Expansion").
Used the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB), introduced with the Apple IIGS, for keyboard and mouse interface.
Improved SCSI support with faster data throughput.
Better reliability.
Longer life expectancy.

The SE was designed to accommodate either two floppy drives or a floppy drive and a hard drive, although an after-market bracket was designed to allow the SE to accommodate two floppy drives as well as a hard drive. After Apple introduced the Macintosh SE/30 in January 1989, an SE/30 motherboard was marketed as a high-cost upgrade for the SE.
Additionally the SE had a special PDS slot that allowed for expansion cards, such as accelerators, to be installed. Later on the SE/30 continued by having one slot. Still today accelerators can be purchased and installed in this machine. The SE can be upgraded to 50 MHz and more than 5 MB with the MicroMac accelerators, which are still sold. In the past other accelerators were also available such as the Sonnet Allegro.
Apple produced ten SEs with transparent cases as prototypes for promotional shots and employees. They are extremely rare and command a premium price for collectors.

Macintosh SE FDHD

Originally the SE could use only Single Density (SD) (400 KB) and Double Density (DD) (800 KB) formatted floppy disks. In August 1989, Apple introduced the Macintosh SE FDHD with the new SuperDrive, a floppy disk drive that could handle 1.4 MB High Density (HD) floppy disks. Some Macintosh SE FDHDs were labeled Macintosh SE Superdrive and are more rare. HD floppies would become the de-facto standard on both the Macintosh and PC computers from then on. An upgrade kit was sold for the original Macintosh SE which included new ROM chips and a new Disk controller chip, to replace the originals.
In Europe, the Macintosh SE FDHD was sold under the name Macintosh SE 1/20 and was shipped 1MB RAM and an internal 20MB hard drive, as well as the Macintosh 1/40 which likewise shipped with a 40MB drive.
The SE FDHD was discontinued in October 1990, with the introduction of the Macintosh Classic to succeed it.

Specifications

Processor: Motorola 68000, 8 MHz

System Bus Speed: 8 MHz

ROM Size: 256 kB

Data Path: 16-bit Level 1

RAM Type: 150 ns 30-pin SIMM

VRAM Type: Built-in

Standard RAM: 1 MB

Maximum RAM: 4 MB

RAM Slots: 4 (in pairs)

Standard Hard Drive: 20 MB

Int. Hard Drive Type: SCSI

Standard Disk: 3.5 in, 800 kB, 800 kB x 2 (auto)

Exp. Slots: SE PDS

Battery Type: 3.6 V Lithium

Display: 9 in monochrome

Supported Mac OS: 2.0–7.5.1, 7.5.3–7.5.5

Avg. Weight: 17.0 lb/7.7 kg

Emulators

Mini vMac SE & SE FDHDFurther Information

Get more info on 'Macintosh Se'.

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